Fishing Poems | Poemist

Popular Fishing Poems

Mandalay

by Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

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Travel

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;--
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;--
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,

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Litany

by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

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A Red Palm

by Gary Soto

You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.

That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair

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Autobiography

by Nâzım Hikmet

I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some about fish
I know separation
some people know the names of the stars by heart

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Recent Fishing Poems

Coho Season

by Robert Chase

On the jetty - in the mist - dry under ponchos
Surf pounding at concrete - biting at the shore
Glowing gaslamp beckoning gnats - freezing on the tank
Poles in hands - lines in water - standing in entwined silence
Coho spawning - swallowing offered bait
Father and Son sharing heartbeats and serenity

Game Fishing in Florida

by Dr. Robert Ippaso

An art or a sport
Some whisper a ‘crazy obsession’,
And like Golf where age won't cut short
At least our pastime won't lead to depression.

A hook and a line
Much patience, sun balms,
No rush when your world is sublime
With glistening waters and a horizon of wavering palms.

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Everybody’s Grandfather

by Jeffrey Pipes Guice

Grandfather...
Will you play with me today...
Will you take me fishing...
Will you show me your way...

Will you tell me the difference
Between a crane and a loon...
Where’s your best fishing spot
At the Audubon Park lagoon...

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Miracles

by Walt Whitman

WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love--or sleep in the bed at night with
any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,

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As I Ebb'D With The Ocean Of Life

by Walt Whitman

1
As I ebb'd with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
Was seiz'd by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the

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